Thirteen Ghosts (2001)

October 26, 2001

FILM REVIEW; People Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn't Stow Ghosts

By ELVIS MITCHELL

Published: October 26, 2001

''Thirteen Ghosts'' is a production so mammoth in its stupidity that it took two studios, Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures, to wrestle it to the screen. It is provisionally a remake of the old William Castle B picture, and as they say when handing out grades in freshman English courses, this kind of B throws off the entire curve.

The new version is a haunted house picture, but all it has in common with the original is a few dumb fun scares. In the new version, what we're left with after the scares is just plain dumb.

Arthur (Tony Shalhoub) is a single father, depressed and broke; his wife died in a house fire that cost him everything. He is fighting to raise his children, Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth) and Bobby (Alec Roberts), on a math teacher's salary, which doesn't explain how he has hired a live-in domestic, Maggie (Rah Digga). Instead of grief management, Arthur could use a money management course.

His evil late Uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham), who comes off as a consonant-rolling overactor even in his recitation of his will, has left Arthur a house. (In the newest wrinkle, Cyrus's will plays out on a laptop computer instead of a videotape.) Arthur and his family are amused by their new haunt, a house made of glass with Latin scrawled across the panes.

''This place is beyond amazing,'' Arthur gasps. And then they learn that -- ooh! -- it's haunted. The glass is a special substance to keep ghosts locked inside glass ''containment cubes'' and, apparently, logic locked out; the house is some sort of ectoplasmic Ziploc bag. (The Latin written on the walls is a series of spells to keep the spooks in place.) As sure as you're going to run out of popcorn, those mean spirits will find a way out.

There really aren't 13 ghosts in the movie, only 12, and a 13th is needed to complete a collection of spirits called the Black Zodiac. So as the actors run from room to room, we have to wait to see which of them will be sacrificed.

Two of the producers, Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver, are the guys behind the ''Tales From the Crypt'' television series and must have been attracted to the creepshow campiness of the story. The ghosts can be seen only through special glasses, a cool plot novelty doubtless devised as a tribute to Castle's original release scam: theaters running ''Thirteen Ghosts'' in 1960 supplied 3-D glasses so that audiences could see the otherworldly beings. Castle was a master of horror gimmicks. His film ''The Tingler'' had seats wired with mild electrical current to put an extra, well, tingle in the audience's tailbones. His other productions included the original ''House on Haunted Hill.''

The unremitting silliness is also a tribute to Castle's filmmaking style. This new version gets a big boost from Matthew Lillard as Dennis, a mercenary ghost-chaser who starts freaking out in his very first shot. ''I used to hunt displaced spiritual energy with your uncle,'' Dennis tells a dumbfounded Arthur. ''Ghosts -- as in Demi Moore and 'Unchained Melody.' '' Dennis is also comic relief. He sees dead people; he's a psychic who can feel death merely by touching something or someone. (No one bothers explaining why he needs glasses if he's a psychic. Maybe his powers are the E.S.P. version of AM radio: they go in and out.)

While trying to escape this transparent nightmare version of a Wallpaper magazine layout, the group is joined -- don't ask how -- by Kalina (Embeth Davidtz), a spectral investigator who objected to Cyrus's evil ghost-hunting while he was alive.

''The 13th ghost is a fail-safe,'' she barks, a ghost of someone who sacrifices himself out of pure love. Kalina explains that the 13th ghost will be the most powerful in the Black Zodiac, reining in the others. This sobriquet makes the ghosts sound like a group signed by P. Diddy, and they are bad boys; they're constantly flinging themselves against the incantation-protected walls, looking to do some harm.

The actors who are allowed to have a good time, like Mr. Lillard and Mr. Abraham, pull out all the stops. The others, like poor Mr. Shalhoub, whose misery perhaps comes from feeling that he outgrew roles like this a long time ago, are reduced to running from one spot to another and reacting to special effects.

Gale Tattersall's cinematography has a shiny, sharp brutality; she captures the feeling of being trapped in glass, which audiences will come to understand all too well.

The most frightening element is that Rah Digga, who is part of Busta Rhymes's hip-hop squad, seems to have been hired just so she can say she doesn't do windows, a joke older that anything in Castle's original version. How will this play, given that horror films are most often marketable to what is euphemistically called the urban market? Is that demographic group supposed to be appeased because Rah Digga gets to stand behind a sound mixing board in one scene as a reminder of her background?

''Thirteen Ghosts'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes strong language, violence and gore, with the most updated version of makeup effects and computer-generated technology: a bloody new standard.

13 GHOSTS

Directed by Steve Beck; written by Neal Marshall Stevens and Richard D'Ovidio, based on a story by Robb White; director of photography, Gale Tattersall; edited by Edward A. Warschilka and Derek G. Brechin; music by John Frizell; production designer, Sean Hargreaves; produced by Gilbert Adler, Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis; released by Warner Brothers Pictures and Columbia Pictures. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is rated R.